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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26617171">See You on a Dark Night</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/delicate_mageflower/pseuds/through-the-stars-to-the-pavement'>through-the-stars-to-the-pavement (delicate_mageflower)</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Sun, Stars, Earth [10]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Avatar: The Last Airbender</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Abduction, Angst, Author is desperately trying to purge some demons, Author is physically incapable of not projecting her own past onto her fics, Body Memories, Flashbacks, Hurt/Comfort, Imprisonment, Kidnapping, Multi, Nightmares, Panic Attacks, Past Child Abuse, Past Rape/Non-con, Past Sexual Assault, Post-Hundred Year War - Freeform, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, The Boiling Rock - Freeform, Title from a Grimes song, but like that's at least half the point of fan fiction right, trauma trauma trauma trauma trauma chameleon</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-09-23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-09-23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 05:48:32</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Rape/Non-Con</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>4,851</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26617171</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/delicate_mageflower/pseuds/through-the-stars-to-the-pavement</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Suki went through more at Boiling Rock than she's let on. She doesn't want to talk about it, and she doesn't talk about it…until she has to.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Sokka/Suki (Avatar), Sokka/Suki/Zuko (Avatar), Sokka/Zuko (Avatar), Suki/Zuko (Avatar)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Sun, Stars, Earth [10]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1967482</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>164</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>See You on a Dark Night</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I am evidently physically incapable of NOT taking my own assaults out on every fandom I write for, oops. This is very different from my personal experience but is still thoroughly me projecting my trauma, which is just to say that please do not think this is solely for the sake of angst and that this subject matter is anything less than very personal and very serious.</p><p>Also, I didn't take it out on Suki purely because she's the girl. I took it out on Suki because her time in prison isn't really talked about and I kind of felt like that would have to be traumatic in its own right, and then I just…yeah. (Also the thing about Suki having already had a therapist initally came up and was then expanded upon because of continuity since that's a thing brought up in <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26110381">this fic</a>, which is also still my favorite thing by far I have written in this fandom as of right now, so please do not judge me on this fic alone, lol.) And I have read some absolutely amazing fics involving Zuko as a rape survivor (HUGE shoutout to the brilliant <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/users/foil">foil</a>) and didn't want to copy that.</p><p>But yeah, I've been having a decent amount of nightmares and flashbacks and such lately, so here's a thing. I also kind of forgot while writing that Suki would have been underage at Boiling Rock but I was assaulted as a minor as well as an adult so, you know, it still works, I guess. And again, still personal and not made light of and taken very seriously. So. Anyway. Sorry for this.</p><p>Title is from "Oblivion" by Grimes, since that song is relevant content and I have been listening to it a lot recently for that exact reason.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Sokka and Suki are sharing tea by the turtleduck pond. They sit on the grass in front of it, three cups poured between the two of them.</p><p>Zuko’s running late. Again.</p><p>“I hope he’s okay,” Suki sighs. She can be terrible at taking time off, but she was outvoted after the rest of the Kyoshi Warriors realized, thanks to Sokka bringing it up to them, that Suki had been working every single day for the past month.</p><p>She tried to argue nothing’s gone wrong in that month and that it therefore hardly even counts as working, but she was eventually convinced to take a day.</p><p>She has no problem taking a vacation when they take <i>a vacation,</i> but she despises being in the palace and knowing Zuko is performing his duties and she’s not there to watch his back.</p><p>It doesn’t help, either, that Ty Lee isn’t here. Mai and her wife have taken Izumi on a trip across the Earth Kingdom, simply because they needed the break, too. Which is great for them, but Ty Lee is the only person Suki ever feels truly comfortable with having at Zuko’s side during Fire Lord business if it can’t be her. She knows the other Kyoshi Warriors care for him as a person and not just their charge, and that they would never do anything to harm him, but Suki and Ty Lee are the ones with <i>history</i> with Zuko, the ones who know to be mindful of the lack of sight and hearing on his left side so few are aware of, to keep an eye out for anxiety or sensory overload. His other guards will protect him with their lives, yes, but none aside from Suki and Ty Lee genuinely <i>know how.</i></p><p>“I’m sure he’s fine,” Sokka tries to reassure her. “He’s with <i>your</i> people, Suki. The best warriors, trained by the best warrior. You’re still protecting him from here, babe.”</p><p>“I know, Sokka, but…”</p><p>They were intending to wait, but Sokka absentmindedly takes a sip of tea anyway. It’s gone cold and it’ll be better once Zuko joins them and he can heat it up, but Suki’s anxious and Sokka’s getting restless and he doesn’t want to show it, so tea it is.</p><p>Suki follows suit despite herself, also not really paying attention to what she’s doing.</p><p>Unfortunately, she already has the cup to her lips when Sokka realizes something is wrong.</p><p>Everything’s blurry and his vision is tunnelling. He reaches towards Suki to push the tea away from her, and he not only misses but he can tell it’s too late and she’s in the same position he is.</p><p>Whatever whoever is waiting for them slipped in is impressively fast acting, that’s for damn sure. This is someone who’s skilled in their craft.</p><p>Suki manages through all her willpower to hold herself together just long enough to smash the teapot and the cup they’d saved for Zuko with her fists so no one else will drink from it, hers and Sokka’s somehow having already been shattered, and she tries to find Sokka but she can’t see anything, and the last thing she remembers is how distant and reverberated her own voice sounds calling for him.</p><p>***</p><p>“Yes, I have those closest to the Fire Lord,” a strange voice says. “Well, almost.”</p><p>Suki can’t yet open her eyes, but she can feel her cheek resting against a cold, stone floor. She’s prone but unbound. It’s damp in here, drafty. Her head is spinning and the voice is fuzzy, and she feels too weak to move.</p><p>But she does know, when she is aware of little else, that she is relieved Zuko isn’t here.</p><p>“Unfortunately Princess Izumi was nowhere to be found within the capital,” the stranger follows. “I do, however, have the next best thing: the ambassador and the guard he publicly refers to as his husband and wife. That should get his attention. And we can surely make some good gold off of their safe return, as well.”</p><p>Suki is yet barely on the edge of consciousness, and being physically unable to is the only thing keeping her from screaming.</p><p>She fights to open her eyes, to see if she can find anything that might indicate to her where they are.</p><p>Or where she is, at least.</p><p>
  <i>Oh fuck, Sokka. Sokka, love, where are you?</i>
</p><p>She tries to say that out loud but nothing comes out except for a dry groan, but thankfully this is met with a familiar frantic hand on her shoulder.</p><p>Sokka’s here, and he’s already awake. That’s good. That’s something.</p><p>“Suki,” he whispers, picking her up and pressing her against his chest. “Fuck, Suki, you’re okay…”</p><p>It sounds like he’s struggling to speak, as well. It probably hasn’t been too long since he’s come around. But he obviously has most of his motor skills back under his own control, although his grip on her is not as strong as it normally would be and his arms are shaking.</p><p>Suki is aware her hands are bandaged. Okay, so they’re not going to be tortured or anything. They might not be treated <i>well,</i> but they are going to be kept in one piece so they can fetch the best possible price.</p><p>This will likely apply to psychological harm, as well. Their captors will want Zuko to see they’re being taken care of so he’ll meet their demands.</p><p>But there is one very large problem with this, which comes to light the moment Suki’s eyes open enough to visually take in literally <i>anything</i> about her surroundings.</p><p>They’re in a cell. The door looks just like the cell doors at the Boiling Rock.</p><p>She talked about her prison experience in therapy after the war, and had dealt with it pretty well. But that was then, and this is now.</p><p>She didn’t expect what she went through there to ever resurface like this. She thought she got help soon enough. But now she understands how Zuko and Sokka feel when they find themselves fully reliving an old memory. Because that’s where she finds herself.</p><p>Here, she screams. It hurts, and she doesn’t know where the sound comes from when her throat had seemed to offer nothing before, but she starts screaming and whimpering and then she’s fighting to get out of Sokka’s grasp and he looks fucking terrified.</p><p>Zuko does this. Zuko does this all the time. It’s never easy to see him like this, but it’s a part of him they know to expect. Sokka does this, too, although not nearly as often and not typically as severely, but he knows how this feels all too well.</p><p>Suki, on the other hand, does not. Sokka has never once seen her in this state, neither did he realize this was ever something that <i>could</i> happen to her. And he has no idea what’s going through her head or how to help her, and all she can do is shout and flail and he has to back away even though everything in him is telling him to scoop her back up into his arms, and it’s even worse they’re trapped here and Sokka can’t so much as try to reassure her anything will be okay.</p><p>And she has never told <i>anyone</i> outside of therapy—not even Zuko and, more surprisingly, not even Sokka—what happened to her at the Boiling Rock. She doesn’t know why. It just never came up.</p><p>Maybe she wasn’t as over it as she thought.</p><p>She slumps forward on her knees and holds her head in her hands. Sokka keeps a respectful distance, but he doesn’t stop trying to get through to her.</p><p>“Suki, Suki, Suki, Suki, love, Suki, it’s me, it’s Sokka, Suki, I’m here, Suki, please talk to me…”</p><p>She feels like she’s going to be sick, and it no longer has anything to do with that tea.</p><p>Sokka has to stay calm. He has looked over this space a thousand times since he woke up, looking for any possible structural vulnerability. Of which he has found several, but nothing large enough for him to potentially use to compromise the integrity of this cell.</p><p>Suki turns around and stares at the wall behind Sokka. She can’t look at him just yet, but it’s better than looking at the locked door and its barred window. This hole is still pretty clearly a prison, but if she can hide from the bars, then…</p><p>Sokka is smart, and when she glances at him she can see the gears turning in his head.</p><p>He watches her closely, sees her barely breathing, waiting for her to speak or approach him, and his head is swimming trying to fit together the pieces.</p><p>Suki never does this. Suki was already a trained warrior when they met, but Kyoshi Island had stayed out of the war before then. Her childhood was spent training but otherwise uneventful. She grew up in a strong and supportive community. She struggled a little after the comet, but therapy worked wonders and she hasn’t had many troubles of her own since. She’d definitely had some post-traumatic stress like the rest, but hers hadn’t been built up by years of repeated trauma, hers was more acute and had been treated quickly. She didn’t really have a chance to experience anything too potentially terrible until her village was burned, but that had been over rather quickly and she’s joked about that with Zuko so that’s probably not it, and then not again until…</p><p>Until she was taken captive. Until she was imprisoned. And then they’re captives now and she’s freaking out like he’s never seen before.</p><p>His eyes widen in recognition.</p><p>
  <i>What happened at Boiling Rock?</i>
</p><p>He doesn’t ask out loud, not yet, but it all clicks together.</p><p>
  <i>What happened? Who did this to you? Zuko will banish them. I’ll fucking kill them.</i>
</p><p>His eyes keep darting around searching for exploitable weaknesses, but he’s at a loss.</p><p>He <i>needs</i> to get Suki out of here. He needs to make sure she’s alright.</p><p>And while Sokka knows virtually nothing of the story that’s clearly replaying in Suki’s head, what he <i>does</i> know for certain is that he hasn’t wanted to hurt somebody this bad since he found out how Zuko got his scar.</p><p>
  <i>Just give me a name, babe, and Aang won’t be able to stop me this time.</i>
</p><p>After all, not wanting to piss off Aang is literally the only thing keeping Ozai alive. But Aang never needs to learn about whatever happened to Suki or who was responsible.</p><p>
  <i>What he doesn’t know can’t hurt him.</i>
</p><p>“Suki,” Sokka reaches for her hand, and she swiftly evades his touch with a rough inhale.</p><p>Zuko usually can’t be touched when he’s like this, but Sokka almost always can. So for as bad as he feels for further upsetting Suki, it also helps for collecting data.</p><p>“No, no, no,” Suki mumbles helplessly, and Sokka is doing everything in his power not to hit something and scare her more.</p><p>Suki is the most fearless person Sokka has ever known. This is heartbreaking. And he’s been left so in the dark about this, but he knows it isn’t about him and he can’t focus on that.</p><p>“We’re gonna get out of this,” he promises her. “I swear we’re gonna get out of here.”</p><p>She looks at him desperately. She wants him, wants his help and needs him to hold her, but she can’t let herself. Instead she pulls up her legs and wraps an arm around them, making herself compact and impenetrable.</p><p><i>Impenetrable,</i> the first word that comes to Sokka’s mind. His chest feels like it’s constricting at the idea, his stomach turns.</p><p>Sokka prays this isn’t as bad as it seems. He implicitly knows there’s no way it’s anything else.</p><p>Finally, whoever brought them here comes to check on them.</p><p>“What’s all this commotion about?”</p><p>Suki can’t reply and Sokka chooses not to. It’s not like he cares, given how long it took him to react to it <i>and</i> given the fact he drugged and kidnapped them to begin with, or was if nothing else complicit in the plan to.</p><p>“Be quiet and you won’t be harmed,” he says, and Suki outright shudders, and it’s like she’s heard this before. <i>Oh, fuck.</i></p><p>“You’re no good to us dead,” the stranger tells them. “And you’ll be worth more in good condition.”</p><p>“So, what, we’re hostages? For ransom? Is that it?” Sokka’s tone is flippant but he’s honestly just hoping this scenario might be different enough from genuine imprisonment to help Suki out of her head if she hears it stated explicitly.</p><p>“Exactly.”</p><p>Sokka wants to throw out some sort of retort, but he has nothing. For one, he has no desire to risk riling Suki up any worse. And secondly, this asshole is going to get his money. It sets a bad precedent, but Sokka has no doubt in his mind Zuko will pay whatever he asks to get them back. The only hope from there is that this man and his accomplices will be caught and then banished at best to dissuade others from doing the same.</p><p>Moments later they’re left alone again.</p><p>Sokka sits down and leans himself against a wall, as close as he can get to Suki without overwhelming her, just keeping her aware of his presence and letting her come to him.</p><p>***</p><p>Zuko does not, in fact, pay the ransom. He shows up personally, which his staff must be furious about, bearing a large and heavy box, but it is full of stones instead of coins and a full guard complement enters right behind him.</p><p>The group behind the abduction was small. The muscle, the representative, and the herbalist. The latter is labelled the most dangerous and is taken away for interrogation. What happens to the other two, Sokka didn’t pay attention and doesn’t particularly care.</p><p>They did keep their word, though. Neither Sokka nor Suki were directly hurt by their captors. They haven’t eaten in days, but it’s difficult to even pay that any mind when they also haven’t slept because Suki has been somewhere else entirely and Sokka has been holding vigil over her.</p><p>“I got here as soon as I could, I am so sorry,” Zuko cracks once they exit the decaying building the guards are still tearing apart. “And I’m sorry, Sokka, we’re heading to a balloon. It was the fastest way, I couldn’t waste any time…”</p><p>“It’s fine, Zuko,” Sokka hastily replies. “I’m not worried about me right now.”</p><p>He is grateful they’re not taking the airship parked beside the much smaller balloon. Sokka assumes the larger vessel is for the guards, and that would definitely have been much harder. Air travel is still triggering even all these years later, but right now it’s whatever. It’s fine.</p><p>Suki breathes for what feels like the first time since they got here when she sees the sun. She is mostly despondent yet, but she takes a deep breath and stops in her tracks even as Zuko tries to drag her out. He sees something is deeply wrong, but his priority for the time being is simply getting them <i>home,</i> and then taking care of whatever they need once he knows he has them back safely.</p><p>“Suki?” Zuko says her name gently, and she shakes her head.</p><p>She has barely spoken at all. She has just shut down, and even in freedom she is shuffling her feet like she can’t actually pick them up.</p><p>Until she does, that is, and then she is running full speed ahead, and Sokka physically can’t keep up with her in his slightly weakened condition and Zuko doesn’t try but looks to Sokka, silently begging for an explanation.</p><p>Sokka thinks he now understands how Suki was able to leap so effortlessly to capture the head warden at Boiling Rock. Adrenaline. Adrenaline powered by her deep, crushing desperation to <i>get the fuck out.</i></p><p>“I don’t know,” Sokka tells the look on Zuko’s face. “I don’t know but I’m pretty sure being in a cell set her off. She started freaking out the second she saw the door. She didn’t tell me anything but I think…I think she was triggered. I think something happened when she was in prison before. Something bad, Zuko. Something really, really bad. I don’t know, and I fucking hope I’m wrong, but I’m thinking the worst. Shit, Zuko, I think she got <i>really</i> hurt.”</p><p>Understanding of Sokka’s implications washes over Zuko, and then he’s grabbing Sokka’s hand and pulling him along, and now he’s running as fast as he can, too.</p><p>***</p><p>Suki scrubs herself raw while leaning over the large tub attached to their bedroom. She does this over and over, like she still can’t get clean no matter how hard she tries, but never once getting in. She doesn’t undress for it. This all but confirms Sokka’s suspicions, which Zuko shares.</p><p>Finally she comes in and flops onto the bed, her exposed skin red, utterly exhausted.</p><p>“I have some explaining to do, don’t I?” she speaks her first full sentence since she worried about Zuko’s late meeting (which has been investigated and was not a deliberate distraction, just impeccable timing in the worst way).</p><p>Her eyes are sore and bloodshot like she’s been crying, except she hasn’t. She needs to, she needs to with every broken fragment of her soul, and spirits know she’s tried but nothing comes.</p><p>Nothing comes.</p><p>It’s like she’s forgotten how.</p><p>She curls into herself, guarded.</p><p>Suki is usually a strong presence. Larger than life. A force to be reckoned with.</p><p>She has never looked so small.</p><p>“I’m going back to therapy,” she brings up first. “I might need a few days to be able to talk about it like that again, but… I thought I was okay with, you know, <i>this.</i> After I went before. I thought I’d dealt with it. But I guess not as well as I’d hoped. So I’m going to talk to Nozomi about seeing me again.”</p><p>“So you told her?” Sokka still tries not to sound hurt. He’s not sure it worked, but he knows the last thing she needs right now is to have to deal with his own insecurities about what happened.</p><p>“Yeah,” she admits. “I didn’t… I didn’t know how to tell you. And I didn’t think I needed to, anyway. There was so much going on after you broke me out that it honestly just didn’t come up. There wasn’t time, and that was enough to distract me from it. But also…fuck. Logically I understand it wasn’t my fault and you’d never judge me for it, and I genuinely haven’t thought about it too much since Nozomi helped me work through it but…I felt so <i>dirty,</i> and I haven’t felt that way in years but now here we are and…and now I realize I should have told you. I’m sorry.”</p><p>“Hey,” Zuko says softly. “Suki, look at me. How long did it take me to tell you all about my scar? And I’m honestly not sure I could ever have done that on my own, if Toph hadn’t accidentally sort of pushed me to tell the truth after she heard about it. I know I have no room to judge. And it would be wrong to in any case.”</p><p>“You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to. Or if it’s too hard.” Sokka is putting her needs first in this. It’s only right. Besides, it’s not like he always opens up so easily, himself. “But if you need to…”</p><p>He thinks of Azula taunting him on the Day of Black Sun, that Suki had been her favorite prisoner and had given up all hope Sokka would ever come for her.</p><p>“But…Suki…” Sokka doesn’t know why it matters, why he needs to ask, but he can’t stop himself. “Did Azula know? Did she have anything to do with it?”</p><p>“No,” Suki answers easily. “No, she had already washed her hands of me by that point. She had her fun with me but it was all psychological, and I genuinely didn’t take any of it to heart. I called out for you a few times in my sleep, Sokka, and she used that against me, tried to convince me you’d never come for me and I’d never see you again, but I knew she was full of shit. She couldn’t crack me and she got bored trying. <i>It</i> wasn’t until after she stopped coming to visit me.”</p><p>Zuko just sort of blinks taking that in. It’s hard to imagine a universe where Azula can’t crack one’s resolve, and he is visibly impressed with Suki. But that’s not what’s important here, so he pushes it aside.</p><p>“It only happened once,” Suki starts. “I think that helped with the processing, too, that it wasn’t an ongoing thing. Nozomi said that makes it easier to treat. Not easy, but… I was told I wouldn’t be hurt too badly if I didn’t scream. I screamed anyway. He wanted to break me, too, take the fight out of me. But I wasn’t going to give him that satisfaction any more than I was going to give it to Azula.”</p><p>Suki shakes her head a little, steeling herself before continuing.</p><p>“There’s no way other guards didn’t hear me, I’m sure of it. Makes me wonder how many other people it happens to there. But he, uh—it happened probably exactly like you’re picturing it. He pinned me face down, and then he…did what he did.” She can’t even say it. The unspoken word lingers in the air, infinitely louder for having remained silent. “It wasn’t gentle. It hurt to walk for a few days. And then I just had to pretend everything was normal. That was hard. It was tough to see him every day after that, too, to know he was always watching me and be constantly reminded of what he did, but then it was only another couple of weeks before you two came and got me out.”</p><p>Suki surprises them by loosening up enough to take both of their hands, stretching over Zuko for Sokka’s. “You saved me more than you knew.”</p><p>“Do you know his name?” Zuko asks. In theory, it’s better for him to get that information than Sokka. Zuko almost <i>has to</i> handle this professionally. Sokka isn’t sure he can.</p><p>But that’s in theory. In reality, Zuko might well just hire another mercenary combustion bender.</p><p>“No. No, I don’t.”</p><p>“Damn.”</p><p>Sokka sighs. “Sometimes there really is no fucking justice, huh.”</p><p>“Yeah,” Zuko nods. “Yeah, sometimes there isn’t.”</p><p>Suki is slowly realizing how much pain she’s been repressing. She wonders if she didn’t so much deal with it as bury it.</p><p>She’d rather not think about it. Of course she’d rather not think about it.</p><p>But now, it seems, she has to.</p><p>Zuko <i>will</i> be ordering a full investigation into the conditions at Boiling Rock, however, and he will be sure everyone who worked there while Suki was imprisoned is found. He wonders how much opposition he’ll face if he tries to have the whole damn thing decommissioned. But he can worry about that later. All he wants to do for now is be present for Suki.</p><p>“Suki, can I hold you?” Zuko wants nothing more than to wrap her up, to love and comfort her, to protect her from what’s long since past in the here and now.</p><p>She nods and he takes her into his arms, keeping her close. She relaxes against his touch, shaking and unable to cry but trying to accept it’s okay for her to feel this way.</p><p>“I know what it’s like to be hurt in ways you never fully recover from.” Zuko does, they all know he does. It’s not exactly the most hopeful thing he could say, but it’s realistic and it’s helpful in its own right. “And maybe <i>you</i> can, but it’s okay if you can’t. We’ll never hold it against you. We’ll always be here for you however we can. Just like you’ve always been there for me.”</p><p>From behind Zuko, Sokka reaches out and places a hand back over one of Suki’s, and she takes it. Her fingers lace into his, and it’s nice to hold onto the ones she loves so intimately and has loved for so long, when these past few days she’s endured reliving touches past, has had to endure the <i>physical</i> memory of what she suffered at Boiling Rock, feeling it like it was happening to her all over again.</p><p>“I could <i>feel it,”</i> she admits. “I mean, <i>literally</i> feel it. Like he was there. It was so real.”</p><p>“That happens to me, too,” Zuko whispers. “Not the same way, I guess, but sometimes I can feel Ozai hurting me like he’s there. I understand.”</p><p>“Sometimes I can feel Toph pulling on my shoulder,” Sokka speaks up. It’s difficult, but if solidarity helps, he’ll do it. “Sometimes I can feel my leg break again, too. But I feel my shoulder a lot. Probably actually did some real, lasting damage to it but it’s not <i>that.</i> It’s the actual pull and the weight, Toph’s hand in mine. Feeling her slip, feeling my shoulder slip damn near out of its socket, even though that was a long time ago and it’s over now. I know I’ve never been hurt like <i>that,</i> fuck, but I…I sort of get it.”</p><p>“And you’re safe now,” Zuko adds. “I know how hard that is to accept, too, but you’re safe. You’re home now. We’re here.”</p><p>Sokka gets up and pulls the blankets out from under them, arranging them to cover Zuko and to carefully tuck Suki in, providing her a layer of symbolic safety she doesn’t cling to quite the same way Zuko or even he does, but she seems to appreciate the intention. And Zuko is warm, he is so warm, keeping her close and loosening her aching muscles and her overwhelmed mind with his heat. It’s comforting. All they can do right now is comfort her.</p><p>Sokka is too tired not to fall asleep almost as soon as he pulls up the blankets on his side of the bed, and Suki finds that despite her head reeling, her body can’t keep up either. She wakes up a few times throughout the night, each time shivering and whining wordlessly and crying through painfully dry eyes. And each time they wake with her, groggy and temporary, and Zuko’s arms tighten around her and remind her she’s safe, and Sokka’s fingers brush through her hair, gentle gestures meant to ground her.</p><p>All three of them are pressed so close together, and it’s soothing. Sokka and Zuko are familiar, the sensation of their hands on Suki’s body peaceful and unthreatening. She knows she won’t be emotionally able to do much more on a physically intimate level than cuddle with them at least until she starts therapy again, but they won’t be upset with her. She knows she can trust them. She knows she is loved here.</p><p>Her hands in theirs, held firm but not held down. Her hands in theirs, supportive and not oppressive. Their weight is welcome. Their shapes fit right into place with hers.</p><p>Recovery is not linear. She thinks she heard Iroh say that to Zuko once, but she’s not entirely sure. Regardless, she’ll try to hold onto it and not let this setback take away all hope for her own mental well being.</p><p>She also remembers hearing some of the healers say something about how skin cells shed and regenerate, and that every seven years one’s body becomes of a different makeup. Which means, after all the time which has passed since her time in prison, she is now in possession of a body that man has never touched. She tries to find solace in that.</p><p>She tries.</p><p>She tries not to see his face again when she closes her eyes, squeezes her legs together to try to keep his phantom hands from getting between them.</p><p>She tries, peers out through the darkness, and waiting for her up above are the sun and the stars shining on her through the night. They surround her and she can breathe.</p><p>Recovery is not linear. It is possible to be hurt in ways that can never be fully recovered from.</p><p>But it’s a start, at least, remembering how to breathe. And to know she’s not alone, that she won’t do this by herself.</p><p>Hands held. Never held down. Not these hands.</p><p>It doesn’t help. Not right now. But that’s okay.</p><p>It haunts her dreams. It probably will for a while. She’s not really sure what anyone expected her experiences in a fucking maximum security prison would be like, but there are plenty of things from the war no one likes to think about if they don’t have to.</p><p>But now she’s talking about it. And that’s okay. She can talk about it.</p><p>She breathes. She holds tighter. She tries.</p>
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